Night Shift

Chapter 10

A giggle.

I know I heard one just then. Soft, child-like. Horror movie cliché type.

I look away from the fridge, a can of Coke still on my hand, halfway to being placed on a shelf.

"Hello?" I call out.

Silence.

I place the coke in the fridge. I still have a full carton next to my feet that need placing in the fridge. It can wait.

I walk behind the counter and grab the hockey stick. It has been years since I've been given the job and yet this stupid, tattered stick has managed to stick around longer than anything else in this store.

I look back over to the hot box. A few items were missing again. When did this happen?

I slowly walk into the kitchen, my eyes darting all over the place, my chest heaving. I have decided I very much prefer total silence over the threat of being alone with an unknown being.

Total isolation is much more definite.

I hear rattling coming further at the back. Whoever is here is in the store room. I run back there, hockey stick held high.

I come out just in time to see the door to the cold room slam shut. This perpetrator has nowhere else to go.

I run over to the door, my breathing short and staccato. I grab the handle and yank on it, I don't even think about what I plan to do when I actually see who this person is.

Turns out I don't need to worry, because no one's there.

I'm not normally one to doubt myself. I haven't had an amazing life, but I've never involved myself in anything considered dangerous. I barely even take a sip of alcohol. Nothing has happened in my life that could explain why I'm potentially hearing or seeing things.

A girlish giggle, a rattle at the back, a door closing. Very eerie stuff, nothing like that has ever happened in here, or in my life.

I give the cold room another glance over, just to be entirely sure that no one is in here.

There definitely isn't.

I lower the hockey stick and close the door. I recount everything that has happened the past hour as I head back into the store. I'm going to need to replenish the hot box items again.

I walk through the kitchen and out to the register.

"Hello?" I call out again. No harm in trying.

But there is no response. Just the usual hums and hissing and buzzing. It's just me. I place the hockey stick back up against the cigarette cabinet.

I walk over to the carton of coke still lying on the ground. I find my mind going blank, getting back into the usual routine of picking up and refilling the shelves.

As I lower my hand into the carton to grab a Coke, I realise there's nothing for me to grab. The carton is empty. All the Coke has been put into the fridge.

"What the ever-loving fuck?" I mutter to myself, staring at the replenished Coke shelf in disbelief.

I look around the store, my head whipping this way and that. The sense of not being alone, I realise, has never left. Someone is here, I know it.

Someone is here!

I look out the glass door, and there she is. A girl, her back toward me, crouched by the gutter. She's dressed in a plain white T-shirt. She has a paper bag resting next to her, one of the bags we give for customers who order take-away food, and a can of Coke resting on the other side of her. Her hair is sandy brown, long and wavy, reaching down to the middle of her back.

I stand back up and head for the door. I open it and step out. The sound of the entry bell doesn't ring, though. How long has that been off for?

"Oi!" I call out.

The girl turns around, completely unfazed by the fact that I've caught her. She smiles and laughs again, the same one I heard earlier.

I've never seen this girl before. She's not any of the regulars.

"Hey there," she smiles. It's cheeky. A knowing kind of cheeky, fully aware of the issues she has caused.

"Were you planning on paying for any of those?" I ask.

She laughs again. I wish she would stop. "No."

"I'll call the police," I threaten.

But I know immediately that she knows.

"You're not going to do that." She grabs the bag of food and Coke, and then stands up. She walks over in my direction.

She's taller than I thought she was going to be, but not taller than me. She's in white denim shorts, the kind that look like they've been cut purposefully at the bottoms, all thread hanging out in big tufts.

"Well, I can't let you take them for nothing," I say.

"I don't think you can really do anything to me." She's directly in front of me. I could see she has green eyes, a mousy nose and a sharp chin. She has no noticeable facial features: no freckles or pimples. I've never seen her in my life. Is she local?

For a moment we're both silent. Her smile doesn't waver, it still remains as cheeky and knowing.

"Why didn't you just show yourself?" I ask.

"Messing with you was more fun," she says. She takes a step around me, heading back into the store.

"Did you do something with the entry bell?" I interrogate.

"Sure did!" she beams. She's completely certain that she won't be suffering any consequences for what she has done.

"How am I supposed to know when a customer comes in or not?"

She laughs. Hard. I feel my face run red. I'm really not equipped to carry out any threats or punishments. I'm weak and she knows it.

"Are you aware of how small this store is?" she says. "You can hear the door open from the far back of the store without needing some unnecessarily loud fucking beep."

"That's not the point!" I cry.

"Then what is?"

"It's disrespectful."

"Oh, shut up," she giggles again. Can she stop it with the laughing?

She can see that I'm annoyed. Her giggling stops immediately and the smile drops.

"OK, look, I am sorry. I just wanted to have a little fun. It has been really boring for the past little while," she explains. "You're the first living thing I have come across at this time of night."

What about all the people I've served tonight? Couldn't she be hanging out with them instead?

She continues to fill the silence. "If it means anything, I did fill up the shelf for you while you were flailing about with your hockey stick."

I look up at the shelf. This time I giggle. "You could have at least refilled the hot items you stole as well."

"I'm not here to do your job," she says.

"Then what are you here for?" I ask.

She takes a big gulp of Coke. "I'm here to help you."

"Help me with what?"

"To get you out of here."